The present invention relates to heat exchangers, and to side plates used in heat exchangers.
Vapor compression systems are commonly used for refrigeration and/or air conditioning and/or heating, among other uses. In a typical vapor compression system, a refrigerant, sometimes referred to as a working fluid, is circulated through a continuous thermodynamic cycle in order to transfer heat energy to or from a temperature and/or humidity controlled environment and from or to an uncontrolled ambient environment. While such vapor compression systems can vary in their implementation, they most often include at least one heat exchanger operating as an evaporator, and at least one other heat exchanger operating as a condenser.
One especially useful type of heat exchanger used in some such systems is the parallel flow (PF) style of heat exchanger. Such a heat exchanger can be characterized by having multiple, parallel arranged channels, especially micro-channels, for conducting the refrigerant through the heat transfer region from an inlet manifold to an outlet manifold.
In part to increase the performance of vapor compression systems, parallel flow heat exchangers having multiple tube rows are being proposed for both condenser and evaporator use. Such heat exchanger architectures can result in different thermal gradients occurring within each of the rows, and can lead to thermal stress concerns that are substantially different than those found in more conventional single row heat exchangers.